“Yes, yes, Monsieur Larcade,” she apologized hastily for her unmerited good fortune compared to his, “what news from your sons?”
“Still no news from Salonique. A letter this morning from Jules’s surgeon. They are not sure whether he will ever be able to walk again. The wound was so deep—an injury to the spine.”
A wordless gesture of sympathy from her, a weary shifting of his heavy letter bag, and he went on to the next door, behind which another woman waited, her hands shaking; and beyond that another one, and then another.
If it was to be a good day, if there had been a letter from André, she opened it hurriedly and read it all in one look, even though the children clung clamoring to her skirts, even though the fire smoked and threatened to go out. Then she set it carefully in the bosom of her dress and put on the faded caps and patched wraps and darned mittens to take the children out for their outing, while she did her marketing. They were too small to leave alone, even for half an hour.
During the painful experience which her marketing always was, she felt warmed and sustained by the letter tucked inside her dress. Everything cost more than the month before, twice as much as the year before when her income was the same minute sum as now.
But André was alive and unhurt.
She looked longingly at the beefsteak which the older boys needed so much, her own children, and bought instead the small piece of coarse pork which must make a stew for them all, those other children of her blood whom the war had thrown on her hands.
But she had a letter from her husband in her bosom.
She priced the cauliflowers, sighed, and bought potatoes, and less of them than she had hoped to have, the price having gone up again. She was horrified to find that rice cost more than it had, an impossible sum per pound, even the broken, poor-quality grade. She would try macaroni as a substitute. There was no macaroni, the woman clerk informed her. There was none at all, at any price. Jeanne turned to another item on her list. The doctor had said that the children absolutely must have more fruit in their diet—fruit! Well, perhaps she might be able to manage prunes. They were the cheapest fruit—or they had been. “Prunes, Madame Bruneau? They are only for the rich.” She named a price which made Jeanne gasp.
She calculated the amount she would need for one portion each for her big family. It was out of the question. She was really aghast, and appealed desperately to the woman clerk, “What do you do?” she asked. “We do without,” answered the other woman briefly.